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Mary Burke Baker
Mary Burke Baker

Mary Burke Baker

Government Affairs Counselor
Washington DC
+1.202.778.9223
Email Mary Burke Baker @ mary.baker@klgates.com
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Mary Burke Baker is a government affairs counselor, where she leads the Tax Policy practice. Mary focuses on federal tax matters affecting domestic and multinational corporations and pass-through entities. Her practice covers tax policy, tax reform, tax regulations and other guidance, tax administration, and technical tax issues.

Mary particularly enjoys working hand-in-hand with clients to fully understand their businesses and technologies to help them achieve their policy goals in order to advance their policy goals in order to advance their business goals.

Mary’s many years of experience at the IRS, the Senate Finance Committee, and the firm have uniquely prepared her to help clients navigate the entire life cycle of tax policy, including tax administration, the regulatory process, and the legislative process. She works on a wide array of clean energy tax credits to help clients understand eligibility requirements, develop comments for Treasury, and identify ways incentives can be improved in future legislation. Other issues include GILTI, FDII, LIFO inventory, donor advised funds, exchange traded funds, corporate tax rates, excessive employee compensation, R&E amortization, various other corporate and shareholder issues, IRS penalties, the OECD global framework (Pillar One and Pillar Two) and related actions in the EU, Opportunity Zones, cannabis, and digital assets.

Mary helps clients identify and assess risks and opportunities in the ever-changing legislative and regulatory environment and develops and executes strategies to achieve desired legislative and administrative outcomes, ranging from changes to the tax code to shaping regulatory guidance—including several successes in recent legislation. She advocates on behalf of clients before the Congress, Treasury, and the IRS. She offers technical analysis and drafts comment letters in response to regulatory projects, working groups, and other tax policy initiatives. She represents coalitions representing the largest multinational corporations and innovative small businesses, and also leads coalitions, latter including the Cash to Accrual Coalition and the Like-kind Exchange Coalition. She is a member of the steering committee of the LIFO Coalition.

Mary believes that communication and collaboration is important, including working with clients to understand their business in order to better understand their policy needs, and with colleagues, other federal agencies, the Hill, and stakeholders to provide a 360 perspective on issues. She offers a popular service that keeps clients informed with timely, relevant, informative and occasionally entertaining tax updates, including political insights and analysis regarding the significance of developments and how they affect tax policy.

Mary serves on the Board of Directors of the Real Tax Policy Group and is a member of Behind the Tree, both featuring biweekly information sessions with top Administration and Congressional tax officials. She also serves on the Board of Directors of Time of Grace, an international media ministry.   

REPRESENTATIVE EXPERIENCE

Prior to joining the firm in 2011, Mary served for six years with the Senate Committee on Finance, giving her a strong foundation in the tax committee's processes and procedures. In that position, she managed several major tax bills for Chairman Max Baucus, including international tax reforms, FATCA, basis information reporting, and third party information reporting.  She oversaw legislation pertaining to various revenue offsets, tax administration, the IRS's role in the Affordable Care Act and economic stimulus provisions.  She managed and maintained the Committee's list of revenue offsets.

Mary also managed committee hearings; oversaw IRS policies, programs, and initiatives; and worked on tax reform measures. She authored many floor statements, opening statements, and press releases on behalf of Chairman Baucus concerning corporate, small business, and individual tax policy and tax administration matters. She also was responsible for vetting the financial information, including tax documents, for all Administration nominees falling under the jurisdiction of the Senate Finance Committee. During her time with the committee, Mary was featured in Tax Analysts as a congressional staffer influencing tax policy. 

Mary also served at the IRS for more than 25 years in a variety of technical and management positions, including Manager of the Office of Tax Shelter Analysis, overseeing the IRS’s tax shelter and promoter compliance functions; Technical Advisor Manager, overseeing telecommunications, entertainment, media, gaming, sports, and high technology technical advisors; Motor Vehicle Industry Specialist, including oversight of the LIFO Issue Specialist; Large Case Team Coordinator, overseeing a team of domestic, international, engineer, employment tax and other specialists on audits of multinational companies; and Revenue Agent, examining a variety of corporate and pass-through tax returns in various industries. During her time with the IRS, she materially contributed to numerous IRS guidance documents, including the Internal Revenue Manual, Coordinated Issue Papers, and Industry Director’s Directives. She represented the IRS during various presentations to the international tax groups in the United States and abroad. While at the IRS, she received many performance awards, including District Employee of the Year.

  • Member, Board of Directors, Real Tax Policy
  • Member, Board of Directors, Time of Grace
  • Member, Tax Coalition
  • Member, Behind the Tree

Mary is a frequent contributor to the tax press and has spoken extensively before business and tax groups.

  • Featured speaker, Renewable Hydrogen Alliance, “Section 45V Final Regulations,” 10 January 2025
  • Featured speaker, New Jersey Business & Industry Association, “How the Elections Will Impact Energy Policy,” 6 December 2024
  • Speaker, "UK-US Roundtable on the US Hydrogen Market & Emerging Financial Frameworks," 10 June 2024 
  • Panelist, Renewable Thermal Collaborative Summit 2023, “US Federal Policy: State of Play and RTC Priorities,” 19 October 2023
  • Panelist, IBM Center for The Business of Government/Kogod School of Business at American University: Roundtable on “AI and the Modern Tax Agency,” 17 October 2023   
  • Speaker, Renewable Hydrogen Alliance, “Federal Update,” 30 August 2023
  • Moderator, Tax Coalition, “Current Issues with IRA Clean Energy Incentives Implementation,” 12 July 2023
  • Speaker, Alternative Fuels and Chemicals Coalition “IRA Incentives for SAF,” 26 June 2023
  • Speaker, National League of Cities, “Monetizing the Inflation Reduction Act Tax Credits,”8 December 2023
  • Speaker, Marcellus Shale Coalition, “Expanding Opportunities for LNG, Hydrogen, Carbon Capture and Energy Infrastructure, 26 January 2023
  • Panelist, "Regulatory Policy: The Hill and ETFs," K&L Gates ETF Think Tank, 9 December 2021
  • Speaker, “Mary Baker, Government Affairs Counselor at K&L Gates, Talks Opportunity Zones with Summit’s Auyon Rahman,” Summit Podcast, 8 July 2021
  • Speaker, “National League of Cities Annual Conference,” Washington, DC, 9 March 2020
  • Participant, “Maryland Opportunity Zone Innovation Roundtable,” College Park, MD, 14 February 2020 
  • Speaker, “San Diego Economic Development Conference,” San Diego, CA, 4 February 2020 
  • Panelist, “US Soccer League Winter Summit,” Orlando, FL, 11 December 2019
  • Panelist, “Unlocking New Private-Sector Development Opportunities in Public Buildings,” Washington, DC, 8 November 2019
  • Panelist, “City of Houston Opportunity Zones Conference,” Houston, TX, 20 October 2019
  • Speaker, “American General Contractors Association Annual Conference,” Las Vegas, NV, 18 October 2019
  • Panelist, “International Economic Development Council Annual Conference,” Indianapolis, IN, 14 October 2019
  • Speaker, “State of Maryland Department of Housing & Community Development Opportunity Zone Conference,” Ellicott City, MD, 1 October 2019
  • Speaker, “Emergency Housing & Safe Workforce Summit,” Columbia, SC, 14 August 2019
  • Panelist, “SIFMA: Opportunity Zone Investment,” Webinar, 7 August 2019
  • Speaker, “Opportunity Zones and Disaster Relief-International Economic Development Council,” Webinar, 23 July 2019
  • Panelist, “Urban Land Institute,” Nashville, TN, 18 April 2019
  • Speaker, “Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst Association,” Boston, MA, 4 April 2019 
  • Panelist, “Discussion on Opportunity Zones,” Boston, MA, 4 April 2019
  • Speaker, “Association of Washington Businesses,” Seattle, WA, 27 February 2019
  • Speaker, “Seattle Investment Management Conference,” Seattle, WA, 27 February 2019
  • Speaker, “Tax Executives Institute,” New York, NY, 15 February 2019
  • Witness, “Senate Small Business Committee hearing:  Economic Development and Opportunity Zones,” Miami, FL 1 February 2019
  • Panelist, “Liberty City Rising: Achieving Upward Mobility through Small Business and Community Partnerships,” Miami, FL, 1 February 2019
  • Speaker, “Dallas Bisnow Opportunity Zone Conference,” Bold, TX, 28 November 2018
  • Speaker, "Prince George's County Opportunity Zones Conference," Largo, MD, 7 November 2018
  • Speaker, “Now that the proposed regulations have been released for the Opportunity Zones Program, What Is Your Next Step?” Qualified Opportunity Funds and Opportunity Zones Released Regulations, Washington, D.C., 31 October 2018
  • Panelist, “NAIOP Annual Conference,” Washington, DC, 15 October 2018
  • Participant, “Aspen Institute/Rockefeller Foundation Opportunity Zone Roundtable,” New York, NY, 8 October 2018
  • Speaker, “City of Spokane,” Spokane, WA, 3 October 2018
  • Panelist, “Urban Land Institute South Carolina Capital Markets Conference,” Kiawah Island, SC, 5 September 2018
  • Speaker, “Seattle Chartered Financial Analyst/Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst Opportunity Zone Roundtable,” Seattle WA, August 2018
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